In France, 150,000 people, according to the organizers, and 14,000 according to the independent cabinet Occurence, marched in the streets of Paris this Saturday afternoon to protest against the pension reform. A new mobilization after the monster demonstrations on Thursday, at the call this time of youth organizations. Part of the Nupes, rebellious in the lead, supported the march, two days before the presentation of the bill in the Council of Ministers. The left is counting on the youth for the future. But the socialists were not there.
Report in the streets of the capital, Pierrick Bonno
They come from Rennes, Tours or Lyon. They are still very far from retirement age, but they wanted to march against this reform in the streets of Paris.
Noé is a first-year law student, he demonstrates under the banner of the Union Pirate union ” to demand the withdrawal of this rogue reform “.
For the most tiring trades, it is to increase misery. A delay in retirement is a disadvantage for young people who want to enter the world of work.
“Be cursed”
At the head of the procession, several rebellious deputies and environmentalists surround Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Arrived in the middle of the course, the latter slips into the procession of young people, not in the front row but a little more sheltered from the cameras.
“ He doesn’t want to do recovery “Swears the entourage of the former presidential candidate. However, Mr. Mélenchon ends up taking the microphone to harangue the crowd, not far from the Place de la Nation. And he speaks directly to Emmanuel Macron.
As you did with health; as you are doing in Education at the cost of this monstrous rudeness called Parcoursup; down Course sup! Be cursed for wanting to turn everything into commodities! Dirty everything, spoil everything, reduce everything, quantify everything! This is what you want to do, Mr. Macron. Be cursed! Let this great breath that we see here in these streets, of these magnificent people who come from all walks of life or for all the reasons, tell you the only slogan that is valid: long live life, down with death!
Then Jean-Luc Mélenchon descends from the tank, carefully avoids the journalists. So as not to steal the spotlight from young people, insists the patron saint of rebellious deputies, Mathilde Panot.
If Jean-Luc Mélenchon speaks to all the press, we’ll say it’s Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s march. We, we are there in support of this youth and I think that if the youth gets involved in the movement as it is in the process of getting involved, the power will have only one solution, it is to give in in large numbers.
“It brings people back”
What nevertheless feed the trial in political recovery that his opponents make him. But it doesn’t matter, according to the young people we meet.
I wouldn’t call it recovery. I think it’s just the movement coming together.
I don’t understand, because the purpose of trade unions is to obtain social rights, such as political parties.
Me, I think it’s relevant, because it brings people back. And the more people there are in the street, the more we are heard.
“My New Religion”
A few meters from the LFI leader: several environmental deputies, such as Sandrine Rousseau and Aurélien Taché. The latter assumes to be in the procession.
This is what people on the left are waiting for and we are here for it. It is important the unity of the left. Nupes is my new religion, me, you know?
No socialist in the procession. The PS had refused to join the rally. ” They have other fish to fry “, ironically Aurélien Taché, the day after the highly contested re-election of Olivier Faure at the head of the party.
Part of the left is now calling on high school and university students to step up their movement. By blocking actions in their establishments, in particular.
►Also listen: This pension project “is not compulsory from an economic point of view”, according to Manuel Bompard
Movement against pension reform: political recovery?
Since the announcement of the pension reform, La France insoumise has been trying to appear at the forefront of the challenge to the bill. Because after several weeks of turmoil within the party due to the Quatennens affair and the lack of internal democracy denounced by some, we now hope to leave the divisions aside to unite against the reform. The date of the march this Saturday had also been chosen before the call for the mobilization of the unions for January 19.
The objective of LFI is that the gatherings multiply everywhere in France every week and every weekend. Youth organizations and La France insoumise hope to broaden the protest to a wider audience with this new march. The leader of the Insoumis Jean-Luc Mélenchon was this time present in the Parisian procession, when he paraded in Marseille last Thursday.
But within the Nupes, this initiative is not unanimous. The ecologists of EELV, the communists of the PCF and the socialists of the PS declined the invitation to demonstrate, as political formations, contrary to what had happened in October during the “march against expensive living” organized by the mélenchonistes, which had drained 140,000 participants according to the organizers, 30,000 according to the police.